Heterodox activities continue without limit, or
so it appears to me. A couple of things. This is
the new book announcement season leading up to
the ASSA meetings where publishers do a great
deal of their business. As a result there are a
lot of new book announcements in the Newsletter.
On the other hand, this is also suppose to be a
job season where young heterodox economists are
trying to get their first academic appointments.
In the United States, the current economic
crisis is resulting in many tenure positions
being without drawn from the market. This will
make it very hard on the heterodox economists
looking for positions. This may mean that a
number of adjunct/temporary positions will open
up around March or so. If such positions do open
at your institution, please send them to me so
that I can get the adverts distributed widely to
those heterodox economists on the job market.
One final thing, I received the following e-mail
a couple of weeks ago asking me whether I knew
of any journal ranking that ranked heterodox
journals. The context of the request is that a
young heterodox economist is going up for tenure
and a ranking of heterodox journals would be
useful in making a positive case to the
administration. The author of the e-mail does
not particularly like journal rankings, but the
institutional context demanded their use.
Opposition to developing rankings for heterodox
journals means that heterodox economists in the
context of tenure are being disadvantaged!

- Latest news from
the Centre of Full Employment and Equity
- Governance of the Modern Firm
- The Financial Crisis and Developing Countries
- URPE at ASSA
- Seminaires Postkeynesiens programmes au CEPN en 2008-09
- Amsterdam History and Methodology of Economics Group and
Cachan History of
Social Science Group

- International Joural of Political
Economy
- Challenge
- New Political Economy
- History of Economic Ideas
- The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought
- The Journal of Philosophical Economics

JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES: HYMAN P. MINSKY'S
INFLUENTIAL RE-INTERPRETATION OF THE KEYNESIAN REVOLUTION
- STABILIZING AN UNSTABLE ECONOMY
- THE CHURCH AND THE MARKET: A CATHOLIC DEFENSE OF THE FREE
ECONOMY
- Just linkage: The power of positive sanctions
- Union-Free America: Workers and Antiunion Culture
- A Buddhist Economic Approach to the Development of
Community Enterprises

The 2009 Left Forum will be held April 17-19 at Pace University, NYC
near City Hall.
The theme is "Turning Points."
See http://leftforum.org for a
description the theme and a call for panels.
Proposals are due January 2, 2009.
Stay tuned for more information!

Is Black and Red Dead?

7th -8th September, 2009
An academic conference organized and supported by the PSA Anarchist
Studies Network, the PSA Marxism Specialist Group, Anarchist
Studies, Capital & Class, Critique-Journal of Socialist Theory and
Historical Materialism.
Appel a Contributions-Priere De Faire Circuler
Hosted By:
The Centre for the Study of Social and Global Justice
University of Nottingham
"Crowned heads, wealth and privilege may well tremble should ever
again the Black and Red unite!"
(Otto Von Bismarck, upon hearing of the split in the First
International) What is the political relevance of the ideological
labels "anarchist" and "Marxist" in the contemporary geo-political
climate? Despite recurrent crisis, the costs typically borne by the
people, neoliberal capitalism continues to colonize the globe in a
never ending quest for profit and new enclosures. Meanwhile, an
effective political response from the left to the wars, ecological
destruction, financial collapse and social problems created by
capital and state has so far failed to garner the widespread support
and influence it needs. Indeed, the sectarianism of the left may
well have contributed to this failure. Still, despite fracture,
there have always been borrowings across the left. Most. recently,
post-'68 radicalisms have contributed to a blurring of the divisions
between the anarchist and Marxist traditions. Traditionally regarded
as hostile and irreconcilable, many of these ideas find expression
in the "newest social movements", taking inspiration from the
Situationists, left communists, and social anarchist traditions. The
anti-statist, libertarian currents within the socialist movement
have repeatedly emerged during periods of acute political and
economic crisis, from the council communists to revolutionary
anarchism. Is this one such historical juncture in which dynamic
reconciliation is not only welcomed but vital? To rephrase the
question, what can we learn from 150 years of anti-statist,
anti-capitalist social movements, and how might this history inform
the formulation of a new social and political current, consciously
combining the insights of plural currents of anarchism and Marxism
in novel historical junctures? Indeed, to what extent have these
traditional fault lines been constitutive of the political
imagination? The modern feminist, queer, ecological, anti-racist and
postcolonial struggles have all been inspired by and developed out
of critiques of the traditional parameters of the old debates, and
many preceded them. So, to what extent do capital and the state
remain the key sites of struggle? We welcome papers that engage
critically with both the anarchist and the Marxist traditions in a
spirit of reconciliation. We welcome historical papers that deal
with themes and concepts, movements or individuals. We also welcome
theoretical papers with demonstrable historical or political
importance. Our criteria for the acceptance of papers will be mutual
respect, the usual critical scholarly standards and demonstrable
engagement with both traditions of thought. Please send 350 word
abstracts (as word documents), including full contact details, to:
Dr Alex Prichard (ESML, University of Bath): a.prichard@bath.ac.uk
Closing date for receipt of abstracts: 1st May, 2009

The 12th SCEME Workshop

The 12th SCEME workshop will be held in Stirling on Saturday 25
April, on the topic 'Culture
and Economic Performance'. Offers of contributions are invited, to
be sent to Sheila Dow at
s.c.dow@stir.ac.uk by 15th January. For further details, please go
to
http://www.economics.stir.ac.uk/SCEME/events.htm

PEA at CEA: Call for Panel
Suggestions and Papers

I know it is only November but planning is now underway for the
PEF's contribution to the
2009 Canadian Economics Association meetings, to be held May 29-31
in Toronto.
Please come forward with any suggestions for panels that you would
like to organize through
the PEF. We will take all suggestions to the Steering Committee in
early January to make a
final submission. Please be as descriptive as possible -what topic,
why, who will be on it.
Also if you have a paper you would like to present we can see if
there is a panel that can
fit it in. But you may want to submit through the regular CEA
process for papers, just in
case.
Nick Falvo will be coordinating the PEF's involvement with CEA this
year. Thanks, Nick!
Please email Nick (
nfalvo@connect.carleton.ca ) and copy Marc (
info@progressive-economics.ca ) with any suggestions by Jan.9,
2009.

Financing for Development: Lessons
and Prospects Call for Papers

The ADEK (French Association for Development of Keynesian Studies),
the SFEG (University of
Economics and Management of Sfax) of Sfax Tunisia and the ARDES
(Research Association for
Economic and Social Development Sfax) organize an international
conference the 13 and 14 of March 2009.
Deadline for abstracts submission: 10 December 2008
Notification of acceptance: 15 December 2008
Final version of papers for the proceedings: 1 March 2009.
Click here
for detailed information.
Top

SPECIAL PUBLIC FORUM - The Financial Crisis Featuring Professor
Randy Wray (Levy Institute and University of Missouri, Kansas City,
USA)
- The causes of the global financial cris and the lessons to be
learned.

Mr Warren Mosler (Valance Corp, USA and Cambridge Centre for
Economic and Public Policy, Cambridge, UK)
- A bond trader's perspective on the global crisis and its
solutions.

Professor Bill Mitchell (Director of the Centre of Full Employment
and Equity, University of Newcastle)
- There is no financial crisis so deep that cannot be dealt with by
public spending.

Professor Robert McCutcheon (University of Witwatersrand
Johannesburg South Africa)
- The generation of productive employment opportunities for the
unskilled: principles, potential and pitfalls of labour - intensive
construction.

3. CofFEE's 10th Birthday Celebration
CofFEE is 10 and you are invited to attend our celebrations to be
held at Bar Beach Bowling and Sporting Club on Wednesday 3rd
December from 7:30 - 10:30pm. Finger food will be provided, so if
you are planning to attend, please email the coffee address
coffee@newcastle.edu.au
to RSVP by 24th November.

Governance of the Modern Firm

11-13 December 2008
Current developments in financial markets are shaking up our
economies. Large-scale takeovers, such as the ABN Amro takeover by
RBS, Santander and Fortis, appear hard to digest. America's most
important investment banks, usually at the heart of the world's most
challenging -not to say speculative- investments, have stumbled into
default. Meanwhile, workers and the public at large appear to be
mere bystanders, despite the fact that it is them who have to foot
the bill. Governments appear to be shaken in their free market
beliefs, even to the extent that nationalisations are on the agenda
again. Sturdy re-regulations of financial markets are widely
expected.
It is against this background that Utrecht University has been able
to get together some of the world's most prominent experts to set
the stage for panel discussions in a high-level academic and
professional conference. The discussion will zoom in on the law,
economics and governance aspects of such issues as shareholder
activism, hedge fund arbitrage, private equity risks and the
position of workers and regulatory authorities amidst the hectic
developments of today as well as the design of regulatory policies
for tomorrow.
The conference Governance of the Modern Firm will be held from 11 to
13 December 2008 in Utrecht, the Netherlands. Early bird
registration is possible up till October 31th.
Further information about the programme can be obtained from Wilco
Oostwouder (Dept. of Law) or Hans Schenk (Dept. of Economics). For
information about registration and payment, please contact Mrs.
Andrea Blokland-de Vries at the FBU Conference Office.
For more information please visit
www.firmgovernance.nl.
Tel +31-30-253 2728
Fax +31-30-253 5851
E-mail firmgovernance@uu.nl

The Financial Crisis and Developing
Countries

IIPPE Financialisation Working Group workshops on "The Financial
Crisis and Developing Countries" on 2nd December 2008 at 6pm
Click
here to download the flyer.

URPE at ASSA

USING ECONOMICS FOR SOCIAL CHANGE—FIVE ORGANIZATIONS REPORT

The panel "Using economics for social change--five organizations
report." will be given Saturday January 3, 2009 at 12:30 pm at the
ASSA meetings in San Francisco. The panelists are:

Chris Sturr, Dollars and Sense “Bringing Left Economic Analysis to
Activists, Students, and the General Public”

Heidi Hartmann, Institute For Women’s Policy Research “Shaping U.S.
Policy to Address the Needs of Women and their Families”
www.iwpr.org

Lawrence Mishel, Economic Policy Institute “Shaping the U.S. Debate
on Policies Affecting Working People Through Empirical and Policy
Analysis” www.epi.org

The reason for this email is that we would especially like members
of other organizations that are trying to bring about social change
using economics to a greater (eg. PERI, Economists for Peace and
Security) or lesser degree to attend and offer their perspectives.
How social change is brought about in the US and the role of
radical/progressive economics in doing so is a neglected topic and I
hope the panel presentations and the extended audience discussion
will be useful. I intend to summarize the presentations and
discussion for possible inclusion on the URPE website or as an RRPE
article.

ICAPE will be having its annual membership meeting in the
"Golden Gate 5" room in the Hilton Hotel from 2:30-4:00 p.m. on
Friday, January 2, 2009. While only members can vote, anybody
interest in pluralism in economics and want to know more about ICAPE
is welcome to attend. ICAPE is also co-sponsoring the ASE Plenary
session at the ASSA, as noted in ‘From the Editor’. Finally, ICAPE
is again paying for a booth at the ASSA. Associations, institutes,
individuals, etc. who would like to use the booth to promote
whatever, please contact me. The ASSA booth costs around $2,000. If
you think that a booth at the ASSA that promotes pluralism in
economics is important, then financial support of ICAPE is
important. If you have any questions about ICAPE or want to get
involved in its activities, please send me an
e-mail.

Democratic transformation of European finance, a full employment
regime, and ecological restructuring – Alternatives to
finance-driven capitalism.
EuroMemorandum 2008/09
Click here to download the paper.

Center for Global Justice

In the past couple months, the Center for Global Justice has given
attention to the growing financial crisis and the prospect of a
major depression. We convened a group to discuss what was happening
and prepare a series of public programs to widen the discussion in
San Miguel de Allende. The first program on October 15 posed the
question “What is the Financial Crisis All About?” and featured a
panel consisting of Jeff Faux, Cliff DuRand, Arturo Yarish and Marge
Allen, chaired by Bob Stone. That was followed on October 29 with a
second panel “Which Way Out of the Financial Crisis?” featuring Jeff
Faux, Cliff DuRand and Betsy Bowman, again chaired by Bob Stone. (a
video of this panel is available at:

Some of the panel presentations along with other significant
articles on the subject are posted on our website under the general
subject CRISIS. We invite you to send us for posting additional
material that you find especially insightful. We seek a wide dialog
about the crisis and the opportunities it can provide for
significant social change. Send your articles to
<admin[at]globaljusticecenter.org>

IS THIS THE BIG ONE?
By Jeff Faux
For more than a decade, we Americans have been living on an economic
San Andreas fault--a foundation of fracturing competitiveness
covered by unsustainable consumer spending with money borrowed from
foreigners. A financial earthquake was inevitable. We don't know how
high on the recession Richter scale the current crisis will take us,
but it increasingly looks like, as they say in San Francisco, "The
Big One."
Read more at
http://www.globaljusticecenter.org/articles/big_one.html

REFLECTIONS ON THE FINANCIAL CRISIS AND OVERACCUMULATION
By Cliff DuRand

Like many of you, I’ve been trying to figure out what is the deeper
cause behind this financial crisis and the larger economic crisis
that is likely to follow. The conclusion I’ve come to may seem
counterintuitive at first blush: the problem is, there’s too much
money! I don’t mean the average American has too much money –so many
don’t have enough to pay their mortgage, fill their gas tank, buy
groceries, send the kids to college. We don’t have enough money.
It’s the wealthy capitalists who have too much money. They have so
much that there is a problem finding places to invest it profitably
–as capitalists, that is what they seek to do: invest money in order
to make more money, to accumulate more capital.

Our economy is a capitalist economy. That is to say, we rely on the
private savings of private individuals to provide for the investment
that any healthy economy needs. But in depending on private savings,
we are compelled to keep up the spirits of those with money to
invest…. Let's be utopian for a moment. Let us imagine a quick
transition from the deeply irrational, ultimately unsustainable
economic system we presently inhabit to a democratic, socialist
economy, one in which enterprises are run democratically, and
economic stability no longer requires keeping our capitalists happy.

Collectively we are now bankers thanks to the $700 billion we
taxpayers gave to the Treasury Department for the bailout. But
before you get too excited I should point out that we won’t have any
say in how our banks are run. … As owners we ought to have a say in
how our money is used. We ought to be able to use it to benefit the
public by promoting social projects. … What if we took seriously our
ownership of the banks and decided to control them ?

THE FINANCIAL CRISIS: WILL THE U.S. NATIONALIZE THE BANKS?
by Dan La Botz

The increasingly popular sentiment that the bankers should be made
to pay for the crisis opens the door to the notion of
nationalization of the banks. What would it mean to have the
government own the banks?
Historically the Populists, various labor parties, and the Socialist
and Communist left have raised the slogan of nationalization of the
banks as part of a process of bringing about socialism. … During the
last couple of decades, countries as different as Mexico, France,
Sweden, and Japan carried out partial or more or less complete bank
nationalizations to regain control of the financial situation.

Why do a few people get to make economic decisions for the many when
the end result is that the decisions made are those that make the
most profit for the owners rather than provide for the common good?
We can imagine and we can realize a real democracy. Free trade,
globalization, the war in Iraq – this was all a lie. It’s time for
us to demand that our elected representatives do what we want
instead of doing what corporations want. Globalization we now see is
really corporativization [1] . Taking control of our lives, however,
will require changing paradigms, re-issuing our conceptions of
freedom and democracy so we can live at peace with the people of the
world.
Read more at
http://www.globaljusticecenter.org/articles/whose.html

The Effect of State-endorsed Arbitration Institutions on
International Trade
Author: Yu Wang

Korea's Recovery since the 1997/98 Financial Crisis: The Last Stage
of the Developmental State
Author: Thomas Kalinowski

André Gorz: Freedom, Time and Work in the Post-Industrial Economy,
Pages
Authors: Craig Berry; Michael Kenny

Venezuela under Hugo Chávez: The Originality of the ‘Bolivarian’
Project
Author: Richard Gott

Automobile Politics: Ecology and Cultural Political Economy
Author: John Barry

History of Economic Ideas

History of Economic Ideas- special issue that includes a discussion
of the attack on the History of Economic Thought in Australia.
This to inform list readers that issue 3-2008 of HEI - History of
Economic Ideas has just been published. Among other papers and book
reviews, the issue contains a symposium on the "near death
experience" of HET in Australia - an episode which was widely
discussed on the HES List about a year ago.
The symposium features a leading article by Steven Kates and Alex
Millmow, followed by five comments by AMC Waterman, Sam Bostaph,
Tony Aspromourgos, Aldo Montesano and Ivan Moscati, plus a rejoinder
by Kates and Millmow.
Information about the issue, and the journal, at
www.historyofeconomicideas.com.

New Editions of Microeconomics in
Context and Macroeconomics in Context

Economics texts that take social and environmental issues seriously!

The Tufts University Global Development And Environment Institute is
happy to announce that new editions of our introductory economics
textbooks are now available for classroom adoption. Both texts are
available at an affordable price of just $49.95 each from M.E.
Sharpe.

Microeconomics in Context, Second Edition by Neva Goodwin, Julie A.
Nelson, Frank Ackerman and Thomas Weisskopf, provides a thorough
introduction to the principles of microeconomics, but also delves
deeper, offering a fresh portrait of the economic, social, and
environmental realities of the 21st century. The book can be ordered
directly from M.E. Sharpe <
http://www.mesharpe.com/mall/resultsa.asp?Title=Microeconomics+in+Context%2C+Second+Edition
> , and free examination copies are available to potential adopters.
A comprehensive Student Study Guide and the full set of PowerPoint
slides are available for free download from GDAE’s website <
http://www.ase.tufts.edu/gdae/publications/textbooks/MIC_Supp.html
> . An Instructor’s Resource Manual and Test Bank are also available
at no cost on GDAE’s website to verified instructors. For more
information, visit:

Macroeconomics in Context, First Edition by Neva Goodwin, Julie A.
Nelson, and Jonathan Harris, covers standard macro topics such as
classical and Keynesian approaches, but also addresses issues such
as ecological sustainability, non-marketed production, the quality
of life, and the distribution of income. Student copies and free
examination copies can be ordered directly from M.E. Sharpe <http://www.mesharpe.com/mall/resultsa.asp?Title=Macroeconomics+in+Context>
. The accompanying Student Study Guide and the full set of
PowerPoint slides are available to everyone for free download from
GDAE’s website <http://www.ase.tufts.edu/gdae/publications/textbooks/MAC_Supp.html>
. An electronic Instructor’s Resource Manual and Test Bank are
available at no cost to verified instructors. For more information,
visit:

“Networking Futures is one of the very first books to map in detail
the multiple networks that are challenging corporate globalization.
Taking as a point of departure an exemplary case—the Catalan
anti–globalization movements of the past decade—Jeffrey S. Juris
moves on to chronicle the collective struggles to construct not only
an alternative vision of possible worlds but the means to bring them
about. Networking Futures is a compelling portrait of the spirit of
innovation that lies behind an array of progressive mobilizations,
from anarchist movements and street protests to the World Social
Forum. Based on a well-developed notion of collaborative
ethnography, it is also a wonderful example of engaged scholarship:
a much-needed alternative to academic work as usual.”—Arturo
Escobar, author of Territories of Difference: Place, Movements,
Life, Redes

“Jeffrey S. Juris gives us an illuminating model for how to study
networks from below using the tools of ethnography. And in the
process he reveals the extraordinary power (as well as the
challenges) of network organizing for social movements
today.”—Michael Hardt, co-author of Empire and Multitude

“Networking Futures is a terrific, deeply informed ethnographic
account of the origins and activities of the anti–corporate
globalization movement. Jeffrey S. Juris’s identity is as much that
of an activist who happens to be doing first-rate anthropology as
vice versa, and there is much for anthropologists to reflect on in
the way that this work is set up and narrated through these dual
identities.”—George E. Marcus, co-author of Designs for an
Anthropology of the Contemporary

Since the first worldwide protests inspired by Peoples’ Global
Action (PGA)—including the mobilization against the November 1999
World Trade Organization meetings in Seattle—anti–corporate
globalization activists have staged direct action protests against
multilateral institutions in cities such as Prague, Barcelona,
Genoa, and Cancun. Barcelona is a critical node, as Catalan
activists have played key roles in the more radical PGA network and
the broader World Social Forum process. In 2001 and 2002, the
anthropologist Jeffrey S. Juris participated in the Barcelona-based
Movement for Global Resistance, one of the most influential
anti–corporate globalization networks in Europe. Combining
ethnographic research and activist political engagement, Juris took
part in hundreds of meetings, gatherings, protests, and online
discussions. Those experiences form the basis of Networking Futures,
an innovative ethnography of transnational activist networking
within the movements against corporate globalization.

In an account full of activist voices and on-the-ground detail,
Juris provides a history of anti–corporate globalization movements,
an examination of their connections to local dynamics in Barcelona,
and an analysis of movement-related politics, organizational forms,
and decision-making. Depicting spectacular direct action protests in
Barcelona and other cities, he describes how far-flung activist
networks are embodied and how networking politics are performed. He
further explores how activists have used e-mail lists, Web pages,
and free software to organize actions, share information, coordinate
at a distance, and stage “electronic civil disobedience.” Based on a
powerful cultural logic, anti–corporate globalization networks have
become models of and for emerging forms of radical, directly
democratic politics. Activists are not only responding to growing
poverty, inequality, and environmental devastation; they are also
building social laboratories for the production of alternative
values, discourses, and practices.

“William E. Connolly is a towering figure in contemporary political
theory whose profound reflections on democracy, religion, and the
tragic unsettle and enrich us. In this powerful work he casts his
philosophical gaze on the internal dynamics of the American
Empire—especially the role of Christian traditions and capitalist
practices. The result is vintage Connolly, namely,
indispensable!”—Cornel West, Princeton University

“In these times, we desperately need William E. Connolly’s
impassioned study of inequality and the destruction of nature, his
sheer awe at living-ness itself, his philosophy of immanent
naturalism and deployment of the Deleuzian assemblage, and,
especially, the interdisciplinary concreteness of his proposals for
a resonance machine of resistance on the left. Along with Connolly’s
description of an ethos, or spiritualization, of academic
engagement, a key contribution of this book is to advance what has
been dangerously lacking on the left, a powerful analytics of the
right’s resonance machine and its recognition that the intellectual
and the corporeal, the theological and the secular, never exist in
purified, ‘clean’ categories.”—Linda Kintz, author of Between Jesus
and the Market: The Emotions That Matter in Right-Wing America

“I immensely enjoyed reading Capitalism and Christianity, American
Style. William E. Connolly offers insight, innovation, and wisdom.
He brings substantive theorizing to the pressing political concerns
of the moment, providing a sense of momentum and sheer energy. This
book is relevant, in the strongest sense.”—Nigel Thrift, author of
Knowing Capitalism

Capitalism and Christianity, American Style is William E. Connolly’s
stirring call for the democratic left to counter the conservative
stranglehold over American religious and economic culture in order
to put egalitarianism and ecological integrity on the political
agenda. An eminent political theorist known for his work on
identity, secularism, and pluralism, Connolly charts the path of the
“evangelical-capitalist resonance machine,” source of a bellicose
ethos reverberating through contemporary institutional life. He
argues that the vengeful vision of the Second Coming motivating a
segment of the evangelical right resonates with the ethos of greed
animating the cowboy sector of American capitalism. The resulting
evangelical-capitalist ethos finds expression in church pulpits, Fox
News reports, the best-selling Left Behind novels, consumption
practices, investment priorities, and state policies. These
practices resonate together to diminish diversity, forestall
responsibility to future generations, ignore urban poverty, and
support a system of extensive economic inequality.

Connolly describes how the evangelical-capitalist machine works, how
its themes resound across class lines, and how it infiltrates
numerous aspects of American life. Proposing changes in sensibility
and strategy to challenge this machine, Connolly contends that the
liberal distinction between secular public and religious private
life must be reworked. Traditional notions of unity or solidarity
must be translated into drives to forge provisional assemblages
comprised of multiple constituencies and creeds. The left must also
learn from the political right how power is infused into everyday
institutions such as the media, schools, churches, consumption
practices, corporations, and neighborhoods. Connolly explores the
potential of a “tragic vision” to contest the current politics of
existential resentment and political hubris, explores potential
lines of connection between it and theistic faiths that break with
the evangelical right, and charts the possibility of forging an
“eco-egalitarian” economy. Capitalism and Christianity, American
Style is William E. Connolly’s most urgent work to date.

“I know of no other book that mixes so beautifully a deep
theoretical understanding of social theory with a rich historical
and contemporary ethnography of the Free Software and free culture
movements. Christopher M. Kelty’s book speaks to many audiences; his
message should be understood by many more.”—Lawrence Lessig,
Stanford Law School

“Two Bits describes the way those who work and play with Free
Software themselves change in the process—engendering what Kelty
calls ‘recursive publics’—social configurations that realize the
Internet’s non-hierarchical, ever-evolving, and thus historically
attuned logic, creatively updating the types of public spheres
previously theorized by Habermas and Michael Warner, among others.
Two Bits does something similar, pulling readers into an
experimental (ethnographic) mode that draws out how Open Source
movements have garnered the momentum and significance they have
today. The book—on paper and online—quite literally shows how it is
done, itself embodying the standards that make Free Software work.
Two Bits is critical reading, in all senses.”—Kim Fortun, Rensselaer
Polytechnic Institute

In Two Bits, Christopher M. Kelty investigates the history and
cultural significance of Free Software, revealing the people and
practices that have transformed not only software but also music,
film, science, and education. Free Software is a set of practices
devoted to the collaborative creation of software source code that
is made openly and freely available through an unconventional use of
copyright law. Kelty explains how these specific practices have
reoriented the relations of power around the creation,
dissemination, and authorization of all kinds of knowledge. He also
makes an important contribution to discussions of public spheres and
social imaginaries by demonstrating how Free Software is a
“recursive public”—a public organized around the ability to build,
modify, and maintain the very infrastructure that gives it life in
the first place.

Drawing on ethnographic research that took him from an Internet
healthcare start-up company in Boston to media labs in Berlin to
young entrepreneurs in Bangalore, Kelty describes the technologies
and the moral vision that bind together hackers, geeks, lawyers, and
other Free Software advocates. In each case, he shows how their
practices and way of life include not only the sharing of software
source code but also ways of conceptualizing openness, writing
copyright licenses, coordinating collaboration, and proselytizing.
By exploring in detail how these practices came together as the Free
Software movement from the 1970s to the 1990s, Kelty also considers
how it is possible to understand the new movements emerging from
Free Software: projects such as Creative Commons, a nonprofit
organization that creates copyright licenses, and Connexions, a
project to create an online scholarly textbook commons.

Looking for diverse perspectives to explain the profound economic
and social transformations taking place in Latin America? Real World
Latin America brings together the best recent reporting on the
region from *Dollars &
Sense* and *NACLA Report on the Americas*.

Forty-five well-researched and clearly-written articles will give
students a thorough introduction to Latin American economic
policies, including the region's changing political maps, the hidden
costs of development, struggles for human rights, international
trade deals, and the role of the United States in the region.

Chapters on social movements and alternative forms of production
document the grassroots challenges to the Washington Consensus that
are rising from Argentine factory shop-floors, Venezuelan
cooperatives, Oaxacan schoolrooms, and elsewhere. Further chapters
look at the impact of migration on home countries and diasporan
communities, and the challenges of responsible environmental
stewardship.

*Praise for Real World Latin America:*

The editors of *Dollars & Sense* and *NACLA Report on the Americas*
have done us a great service. This is a timely collection of essays,
sophisticated yet highly readable analysis of the most pressing
issues facing Latin America today. The book is ideally suited for
undergraduate courses on the region, and will be of interest to a
broader readership as well.

—Eric Hershberg, President, Latin American Studies Association

Latin America is on the move, finding its way towards new approaches
to economic development with social justice. *Real World Latin
America*provides a compelling picture of change, political conflict,
and the real stakes involved in the region. It is a valuable guide
to the contemporary history of the present, inviting readers to stay
tuned for more to come.

—Michael A Cohen, Director of the International Affairs Program, New
School University

This is a timely and invaluable overview of current political,
economic, social and cultural dynamics in Latin America. It brings
together an impressive array of experts who write in a concise and
accessible manner on a wide range of topics that define the current
Latin American and hemispheric reality. Here the reader will find
analysis and context for making sense of today's headlines. I cannot
imagine a more important collection for classroom use and for
readers from the general public interested in understanding
contemporary Latin America.

—William I. Robinson, Professor of Sociology, Global Studies, and
Latin American Studies, University of California at Santa Barbara,
and author of *Latin America and Global Capitalism*

Violence Today: Actually Existing
Barbarism

Socialist Register 2009
edited by Leo Panitch and Colin Leys
TO ORDER, Click Here, or call 800.870.9499
http://www.monthlyreview.org/sr2009.php
Given the extent and extremity of violence today, even in the
absence of world war, and two decades after the end of
actually-existing socialism, it is hard not feel that we are living
in another age of barbarism. The scale and pervasiveness of violence
today calls urgently for serious analysis—from “the war on terror”
and counter-insurgencies, from terror and counter-terror, suicide
bombings and torture, civil wars and anarchy, entailing human
tragedies on a scale comparable to those of the two world wars, not
to mention urban gang warfare, or the persistence of chronic
violence against women. That the nirvana of global capitalism finds
millions of people once again just “wishing (a) not to be killed,
(b) for a good warm coat” (as Stendhal is said to have put it in a
different era) is, when fully contemplated, appalling.
The opening essay offers an overview of the scale and variety of
contemporary violence while also taking up once again the question
of socialism versus barbarism. Other essays analyze the nature and
roots of paradigmatic cases and types of violence today around the
world. And several of the concluding essays deal, from various
different standpoints, with the still important question of whether
violence has any place in socialist strategy in the context of
today’s actually-existing barbarism.
Contributions:
Henry Bernstein, Colin Leys, and Leo Panitch — Reflections on
Violence Today
Vivek Chibber — American Militarism and the U.S. Political
Establishment: The Real Lessons of the Invasion of Iraq
Philip Green — On-Screen Barbarism: Violence in U.S. Visual Culture
Ruth Wilson Gilmore — Race, Prisons and War: Scenes from the History
of U.S. Violence
Joe Sim and Steve Tombs — State Talk, State Silence: Work and
‘Violence’ in the UK
Lynne Segal — Violence’s Victims: The Gender Landscape
Barbara Harriss-White — Girls as Disposable Commodities in India
Achin Vanaik — India’s Paradigmatic Communal Violence
Tania Murray Li — Reflections on Indonesian Violence: Two Tales and
Three Silences
Ulrich Oslender — Colombia: Old and New Patterns of Violence
Sofiri Joab-Peterside and Anna Zalik — The Commodification of
Violence in the Niger Delta
Dennis Rodgers and Steffen Jensen — Revolutionaries, Barbarians or
War Machines? Gangs in Nicaragua and South Africa
Michael Brie — Emancipation and the Left: The Issue of Violence
Samir Amin — The Defense of Humanity Requires the Radicalization of
Popular Struggles
John Berger — Human Shield

Leo Panitch is professor of political science at York University in
Toronto and author of Renewing Socialism: Democracy, Strategy, and
Imagination.
Colin Leys is emeritus professor at Queen’s University, Kingston,
Ontario and author of Market-Driven Politics.

About the Book
In the spring on 2006, a workshop was held at Michigan State
University to honour the career of A. Allan Schmid and his writings
about how institutions evolve and how alternative institutions,
including property rights, shape political relationships and impact
economic performance. This edited book is the outcome of the
workshop. It is a collection of original essays that explores
several approaches to understanding the impact of alternative
legal-economic institutions. The collection investigates questions
such as: What are the similarities and differences among the various
strands and approaches? Could parts of the different approaches be
integrated to achieve greater insight into economic behaviour? Do
different analytical problems require different approaches? Are the
various strands of institutionalism actually saying the same things,
but using different language and perspective?
In gathering together authors who represent different approaches or
strands of institutionalism, this book addresses several different
issues such as transactions as the unit of observation, bounded
rationality and learning, power issues embedded in the concept of
efficiency, comparative empirical analysis, multiple equilibria and
institutional diversity within a given environment, specification of
institutional rules and structures, evolutionary perspectives,
decentralized processes, and the significance of historical content.
Table of Contents
CONTENTS, Foreword, Nicholas Mercuro and Sandra S. Batie, Chapter 1
- Power and the Troublesome Economist: Complementarities Among
Recent Institutional Theorists, A. Allan Schmid, Chapter 2- Some
Problems in Assessing the Evolution and Impact of Institutions,
Warren J. Samuels, Chapter 3 - Developing a Method for Analyzing
Institutional Change, Elinor Ostrom, Chapter 4 - Does Economic
Development Require "Certain" Property Rights?, Peter J. Boettke and
J. Robert Subrick, Chapter 5 - Institutional Economics as Volitional
Pragmatism, Daniel W. Bromley, Chapter 6 - Institutions and
Rationality, Arild Vatn, Chapter 7 - Simplicity in Institutional
Design, Nathan Berg, Chapter 8 - The Essence of Economics – Law,
Participation and Institutional Choice (Two Ways), Neil Komesar,
Chapter 9 - Is Law Facilitating or Inhibiting Transactions?, Claude
Ménard, Chapter 10 - On Institutional Individualism as a Middle-way
Mode of Explanation for Approaching Organizational Issues, Fernando
Toboso, Chapter 11 - The Role of Attitudes in Action and
Institutional Change – An Evolutionary Perspective, Uta-Maria
Niederle, Chapter 12 - Post-Keynesian Institutionalism and the
Anxious Society, Charles J. Whalen, Chapter 13 - Towards a Theory of
Induced Institutional Change: Power, Labor Markets, and
Institutional Change, Morris Altman, Chapter 14 - The Instituted
Nature of Market Information: the Case of Induced Innovation and
Environmental Regulation, Patricia E. Norris, David B. Schweikhardt,
and Eric A. Scorsone, Chapter 15 - The Role of Culture and Social
Norms in Theories of Institutional Change: The Case of Agricultural
Cooperatives, Julie A. Hogeland, Chapter 16 - Payment for
Environmental Services and Other Institutions for Protecting
Drinking Water in Eastern Costa Rica, Michael D. Kaplowitz, Daniel
V. Ortega-Pacheco, and Frank Lupi, Chapter 17 - A Dialogue on
Institutions: Assessing the Evolution and Impact of Alternative
Institutional Structures, edited by Nicholas Mercuro and Sandra S.
Batie, Contributors, Index
About the Author(s)
Sandra S. Batie is Elton R. Smith Professor in Food and Agricultural
Policy, Department of Agricultural Economics, Michigan State
University and Fellow of the American Agricultural Economics
Association
Nicholas Mercuro is Professor of Law in Residence at the Michigan
State University College of Law and member of the faculty of MSU's
James Madison College and founder and co-editor of The Economics of
Legal Relationships series with Routledge.

The HEN-IRE-FPH Project for
Developing Heterodox Economics and Rethinking the Economy Through
Debate and Dialogue

The Heterodox Economics Newsletter, The International Initiative for
Rethinking the Economy (IRE), and the Charles Leopold Mayer
Foundation for the Progress of Humankind (FPH) (
www.fph.ch ) have undertaken a joint
project to promote the development of heterodox economics. It
involves publishing in the Newsletter reviews, analytical summaries,
or commentary of articles, books, book chapters, theses,
dissertations, government reports, etc. that relate to the following
themes: diversity of economic approaches, regulation of goods and
services, currency and finance, and trade regimes. These themes
relate to heterodox economics and to the open and pluralistic
intellectual debates in economics. For further information about the
project and queries about reviewing, contact Fred Lee (
leefs@umkc.edu ).

I would like to be in contact with colleagues who have an interest
in cooperative financial and/or insurance institutions, in order to
discuss how these institutions, in both developed and developing
countries, are being affected by the financial crisis.
look forward to receiving your reply - please reply to
g1coop@ilo.org
Many thanks
emma

By SASAN FAYAZMANESH
A recent invitation to speak on the “cause or causes of the current
financial crisis” made me reflect on another topic: “the cause or
causes of the Great Depression.” To this day there is no consensus
among economists as to what caused the severe depression that lasted
from 1929 to 1939. Was it the stock market crash in 1929 that
brought about the Great Depression? Was it the subsequent banking
panics and monetary contraction? Perhaps it was the reduction in
international lending and protectionist policies pursued by the
US—such as the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act—that caused the Great
Depression. Or perhaps the “great contraction,” as Milton Friedman
used to call it [1], was caused by the actions of the Federal
Reserve, which allowed a decline in the money supply partly to
preserve the gold standard. All such explanations are, of course, ad
hoc. (cont.)

Keynes is innocent

Keynes is innocent: the toxic spawn of Bretton Woods was no plan of
his: The economist's dream was blocked for an IMF serving the rich.
Reforms proposed by G20 leaders are too little, too late

Poor old Lord Keynes. The world's press has spent the past week
blackening his name. Not intentionally: most of the dunderheads
reporting the G20 summit that took place over the weekend really do
believe that he proposed and founded the International Monetary
Fund. It's one of those stories that passes unchecked from one
journalist to another. (cont.)

Open letter to Economists

At a time when our nation faces an economic and financial crisis,
unlike any other since the Great Depression of the 1930’s.
At a time when millions of American’s have lost their jobs and many
more are in danger of losing theirs.
At a time of record home foreclosures, growing homelessness, and
poverty.
At a time when our nation sinks deeper into debt with unsustainable
trade deficits.
At a time when our world may be changed irreparably through global
warming.
At a time when we are engaged in two wars draining us of $12 billion
dollars every month.
At a time of unprecedented military budgets, greater than any since
WWII.

We economists urge President-Elect Obama to address these urgent
problems by:
Undertaking a massive federal/state/local government investment
initiative to generate a green economy that will:
- Provide millions of new jobs and revitalize our economic base.
- Dramatically reduce the consumption of fossil fuels and reduce the
danger of global warming.
- Reduce the trade gap by using greater efficiency and renewable
energy to become energy independent.
To finance this initiative we urge a combination of budget deficits,
tax increases for high income earners, a rapid end to
interventionist wars and prudent cuts in military spending,
recognizing that the US spends as much on the military as all other
nations combined.